Chris Gill: Car Swap was great, but don't get your hopes up

Monday

Jun 20, 2011 at 12:01 AMJun 20, 2011 at 8:15 PM

Tuesday’s Mobil 1 Car Swap at Watkins Glen International A) reinvigorated chatter about the chances of Formula One coming back to The Glen and B) sparked talk of NASCAR running the Sprint Cup Series race around the full 3.4-mile circuit.

Chris Gill

Tuesday’s Mobil 1 Car Swap at Watkins Glen International was more than the best media buy since Moses descended off Mt. Sinai with two stone tablets, it A) reinvigorated chatter about the chances of Formula One coming back to The Glen and B) sparked talk of NASCAR running the Sprint Cup Series race around the full 3.4-mile circuit.

After Tuesday’s event, the two most predominant questions from the press, foreign and domestic, were: could F1 hold a race here again and could the Cup cars, and drivers, handle “the boot?”

Everyone was so upbeat following Tony Stewart and Lewis Hamilton’s exhibition laps – an event talked about for more than a year – that the tone was nothing but positive, if not giddy. We’re talking about the kind of cloud walking only seen after the president of the math club hooks up with a cheerleader – something no one thought would happen, and may never occur again.

Now that we’ve had time to come down off Tuesday’s race geek high, we need a dose of reality so we can stop looking for unicorn droppings and leprechaun treasure in our backyards.

To the point of F1’s triumphant return to The Glen: it isn’t going to happen. Not in five years, not in a decade, probably not as long as International Speedway Corp. owns the place. Even if the ISC board grew tired of The Glen and sold it to an eccentric billionaire who happens to be the biggest F1 fan in the world, the odds are still razor thin the globe-trotting series would come back.

Look at the additions to the F1 schedule over the last 15 years – Malaysia, Shanghai, Istanbul, Singapore, Korea, India and Bahrain. Indianapolis, the most celebrated race track, perhaps, in the world, didn’t even last 10 years on the schedule. The principle players in F1 (i.e. Bernie Ecclestone) clearly aren’t interested in traditional markets anymore. These days, they’re astutely aiming for emerging powers in metropolises around the Middle East and Asia. As much as I love The Glen, our little piece of earth doesn’t compare. The nearest “metro” area is Buffalo – a fine city defined by its cuisine of chicken wings, but not quite as economically vibrant as Kuala Lumpur.

The dreamers believe F1 won’t come back unless ISC pumps Trump-like money into the facility. Nearly $30 million has gone into upgrading the track since 2001, but you’d have to throw at least another $100 million on top of that to bring it to F1 standards, and the ISC board is too cautious/wise to do that without having something in writing. So let’s say Ecclestone signs a deal to bring the U.S. Grand Prix back if the changes are made. Great! At least for a few years until the series gets a better offer from a sheik in an oil-rich sandbox on the Arabian peninsula. That kind of maneuver is what bankrupted the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Corp. in the first place.

F1 needs to be in America for all the marketing cash that comes out of spigots in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Indeed, that’s why the series will be racing in Texas next season on another unintersting, flat race course, which from above looks like someone tied a crayon to their cat’s right-front paw and placed it on a sheet of paper.

So, no Virginia, there is no Santa Claus.

That brings us to the second talking point: Sprint Cup cars on the long course.

I believe Geoff Bodine was the first person to debunk the myth that the extra mile down in the woods was too demanding on the cars and drivers in, oh, about 1985. The cars could handle the track then with some ingenuity, probably more so than some of the drivers back in the 1980s. However, it would be as interesting to watch as, well, an F1 race.

The reason NASCAR-sanctioned series race on the 2.45-mile circuit is to give fans the best bang for their bucks (I know, Grand-Am is under the NASCAR umbrella these days, but just, shut up). The Cup races on the short course have become some of the best in the sport over the last decade, even if some observers paid to chronicle events were slow to catch on. The new generation of drivers, coupled with imported talents, have made the 90-lapper in August one of the most-anticipated races of the season.

To take the cars around the long course would reduce the number laps and spread the field out much more than people believe. It would be a true test of driving skill, for sure, but that also means some of the, ahem, lesser talents wouldn’t be able to hang in there and the racing would suffer. It’s just not realistic to believe there would be a pack of cars all the way around the boot like there is at the chicane or Turn 1. The reason there are packs and challenges for the lead every August is because the 2.45-mile course is easier to drive.

Look, I hate being the pragmatist. You’re reading the words of a man nearing his 40s who’s main goal this summer is to see the new X-Men movie in the theater and to rack up gamer points on XBox. Still, we need to tamp down our hopes on these two points because if not, we’ll A) die bitterly disappointed and B) end up ruining a good thing.

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